Some drivers of battery electric vehicles can experience range anxiety, or driving range anxiety, due to a number of issues. Driving range anxiety can be described as the fear that a vehicle has insufficient range to reach its destination and would thus strand the vehicle's occupants. Driving range anxiety can be used in reference to battery electric vehicles, also referred to herein as electric vehicles, and may be considered one of the major barriers to large scale adoption of vehicles which are solely powered by batteries. For example, a driver can experience driving range anxiety while driving an electric vehicle because of their shorter driving ranges compared to gas-fueled cars, fewer charging stations than gas stations, and long charging times.
When some electric vehicles are fully charged, the distance the electric vehicle can travel until requiring re-charging is typically 80 to 100 miles. Therefore, assuming all other conditions being equal (i.e., road conditions, driving conditions, etc.) a fully charged electric vehicle cannot go as far as a gas-fueled car with a full tank of gas. For at least some drivers, when a gas-fueled car has only about a quarter of a tank of gas the driver begins to be concerned about re-fueling in order to not run out of gas. Therefore, it can be particularly unnerving for drivers who are used to gas-fueled cars to drive electric vehicles due to the limited driving range of the electric vehicle.
In addition to the limited driving range compared to gas-fueled cars, there can be significantly less charging stations available for re-charging electric vehicles compared to gas stations for re-fueling gas-fueled cars. Therefore, not only are some drivers concerned about the limited driving range of electric vehicles compared to gas-fueled cars, they can also be concerned about the availability of charging stations for re-charging their electric vehicles.
Furthermore, it can take upwards of several hours to re-charge an electric vehicle which can be significantly inconvenient for a driver. Therefore, due to a potentially long re-charging time, a driver of an electric vehicle can experience driving range anxiety if the driver is not provided with reliable information regarding the electric vehicle's ability to reach one or more driving destinations.
At least some electric vehicles provide the driver with a variety of information, such as approximate charge level of the battery and approximate driving range before re-charging of the electric vehicle is required. However, even this type of information can result in driving range anxiety if the information provided is unreliable. For example, at least some electric vehicles provide an approximate driving range before re-charging is required, but the information is based off of only past and current driving and car conditions and does not factor in a variety of other factors which affect the driving range. Therefore, a driver can be informed that the electric vehicle has enough battery charge to reach a destination and then shortly after, such as due to a change in driving conditions, can inform the driver that there is not enough battery charge to reach the destination. A variety of factors can affect the driving range of an electric vehicle, such as traffic, type of driving terrain (i.e., inclines, declines, road conditions, etc.), and the driving habits of the driver.